Callias, the Fall of Athens
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Conditions and Terms of Use TABLE OF CONTENTS Copyright © Heritage History 2009 A NEW PLAY............................................................................. 3 Some rights reserved NEWS FROM THE FLEET ............................................................. 8 IPPOCLES THE LIEN This text was produced and distributed by Heritage History, an organization H A ............................................................ 11 dedicated to the preservation of classical juvenile history books, and to the promotion A COUNCIL ............................................................................. 14 of the works of traditional history authors. RUNNING THE BLOCKADE ....................................................... 18 The books which Heritage History republishes are in the public domain and ARGINUSAE ............................................................................. 21 are no longer protected by the original copyright. 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INVALIDED ............................................................................ 102 BACK TO ATHENS ................................................................. 106 Permission to use Heritage History documents or images for commercial HE TORY OF THE RIAL purposes, or more information about our collection of traditional history resources can T S T ..................................................... 111 be obtained by contacting us at [email protected] THE LAST CONVERSATION .................................................... 118 THE CONDITION OF EXILE ..................................................... 124 Original Copyright 1891 by Alfred J. Church. 2 Distributed by Heritage History 2009 successors are puny and degenerate. Examine too the crowd that CHAPTER I throngs the benches, and you will see that the slaves, distinguished by their unsleeved tunics, fill up no small portion of space. And boys form an unusually large proportion of the A NEW PLAY audience. Altogether the theatre is a dispiriting sight to a patriotic Athenian. It is the second year of the ninety-third Olympiad and the To-day, however, all is gaiety, for, as has been said, there Theatre at Athens is full, for the great dramatic season is at its is a new play to be brought out, and an Athenian must be in height, and to-day there is to be performed a new play by desperate straits indeed, if he cannot forget his sorrows at a new Aristophanes, the special favorite of the Athenian public. It is a play. brilliant scene; but a keen observer, who happened to see the same gathering some five and twenty years ago, must now notice a When the curtain rises, or rather, is withdrawn, as the certain falling off in its splendor. For these five and twenty years Greek arrangement was, into an opening in the floor of the stage; have been years of war, and latterly, years of disaster. Eleven a murmur of recognition runs through the audience. The scene is years ago, the City wild with the pride of power, and wealth, the market place of Thebes, and a familiar figure occupies the embarked on the mad scheme of conquering Sicily, and lost the foreground. finest fleet and army that it ever possessed. Since then it has been The portly figure, the ruddy face, the vine-leaf crown, and a struggle for life with it, and year by year it has been growing the buskins show him to be Bacchus, the patron-god, it will be weaker and weaker. This has told sadly on the glories of its great remembered, of the Drama. But why this lion's skin and club? The festivals. The furnishing of the stage, indeed, is as perfect as ever, god gives a lordly kick at the door of the house which was one of and the building itself has been pushed on several stages towards the familiar stage-properties, and Hercules appears. He roars with completion. However scarce money may be in the public treasury, laughter to see his own emblems in such strange company. the theatre must not be starved. But elsewhere there are manifest Bacchus explains. "The tragic poets grow worse and worse. There signs of falling off. The strangers' gallery is almost empty. All the is not one who can write a decent line. I am going down to the Greek world from Massilia in Gaul to Cyrene among the sands of regions of the dead to fetch Euripides, and thought that I had Africa used to throng it in happier days. Now more than half that better dress myself up in your fashion, for you, I know, made this world is hostile, and the rest has little to hope or fear from the same journey very successfully. Perhaps you will tell me dispossessed mistress of the seas. Dionysius of Syracuse, has sent something about the way, and what inns you can recommend, an embassy, and the democracy, which once would have treated where they are free from fleas, you know." with scant courtesy the representatives of a tyrant, is fain to flatter so powerful a prince. There are some Persian Envoys too, for the "Are you really going?" Persians are still following their old game of playing off one great "Yes, yes. Don't try to dissuade me; but tell me the, way, state against another. A few Greeks from Sinope and from one of which must not be either too hot or too cold." the Italian cities, persons of no importance, who would hardly have found a place in the gallery during the palmy times of "Well there is the Hanging way, by the sign of the Rope Athens, make up the company of visitors. Look at the body of the and Noose." theatre, where the citizens sit, and the spectacle is deplorable "Too stifling." indeed. The flower of Athens' sons has perished, and their Original Copyright 1891 by Alfred J. Church. 3 Distributed by Heritage History 2009 "There is a very short cut by the Mortar and Pestle." Grant, fortune, I may meet some perilous chance "The Hemlock road, you mean?" Meet for so bold a journey." "Exactly so." "O Master, I hear a noise." "Too cold and wintry for me." "Where, where?" "Well; I'll tell you of a quick road and all downhill." "It is behind us." "Excellent! for I am not a good walker." "Get behind then." "You know the tower in the Cemetery? Well; climb up to "No—it is in front." the top when the Torch race is going to begin; and when the "Why don't you go in front?" people cry out 'start,' start yourself." "O Master, I see such a Monster." "How do you mean 'start'? Start from where?" "What is it like?" "Why, start down from the top." "Why! it keeps on changing—now it's a bull, now it's a "What, and dash my brains out? No, not for me, thank stag, and now it's a woman;